Pirating copyright reform

Falkvinge argues that copyright law has now turned knowledge and information into private property that is no longer accessible and usable without permission or payment. The Party’s copyright reform policy states that non-commercial copying and use should be free and that file-sharing of cultural works should be encouraged rather than criminalised.

The period of protection for copyright work should be radically reduced to five years after publication - rather than 70 years after the death of the author as is now the case in the European Union, the US and Australia. This would allow a period for commercial exploitation of new works which would then move into the public domain and form the basis of “the greatest public library ever”, available to all citizens to access and use.

Falkvinge points out that the current 70-year copyright arrangement means that no current works will enter the public domain during his lifetime. “The commercial life of cultural works is staggeringly short in today’s world and no one needs to make money 70 years after they’re dead”, he says.

In response to the argument that creators need the longer period of copyright to compensate them for lack of employer superannuation, he points out that most of the benefits actually go to the corporations that either own or license the copyrights. And he adds, why should creators not put some of their earnings into super, as others are obliged to do?

The other focus of the Party’s copyright reform policy is the now ubiquitous digital rights management (DRM) technologies such as encryption and watermarking. Known by many who have tried to play a region-coded DVD on a player outside the designated region or by those who have tried to share encrypted music files, these are increasingly being applied to digital works.

DRM prevents users from accessing locked works even when their use might otherwise be lawful as “fair use” under US law or “fair dealing” in Australia. Some can also be used to track user behaviours, which the Party sees as an unwarranted invasion of privacy. The Party wants them banned.

Under international law, breaking or “circumventing” DRM locks is a criminal offence - even if it is done for educational or research purposes. Dmitry Sklyarov, a Russian PhD student and employee of Elcomsoft found this out the hard way when he gave a paper that dealt with Adobe’s ebook security systems at a 2001 conference in the US.

As he was about to catch a plane home the FBI arrested him, charging him under US copyright law with distributing a product designed to break Adobe’s anti-piracy code. The charges against him were eventually dropped but not before digital activists started web and mailing-list protests in his defence and 100 protesters marched on Adobe’s headquarters demanding his release. And it was not before he was obliged to provide US$50,000 bail to secure his release from custody.

There are other tales, real and apocryphal, of the lengths to which the record, movie and publishing industries will go to preserve what the Pirate Party sees as abuse of their monopoly privileges under the law.

The passing of the US Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 (the “Mickey Mouse” Act) is an example. After intense lobbying by the entertainment industries, US Congress passed an Act that extended the period of copyright protection for corporate works just at the time that Disney’s Mickey Mouse was due to enter the public domain.

Another example is the legal action taken by the Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) against more than 20,000 of its customers for file-sharing. Unfortunately for the RIAA and the individuals who have settled for an average of US$3,000 to avoid paying much more to a lawyer for representing them, the number of file-sharers has continued to grow.

There is an ideology and a sentiment within much of digital culture that new technologies offer the possibility of greater access to knowledge and information across both the developed and developing worlds. The Pirate Party is making a stand on the issue, using its name and its classic pirate logo as a banner to draw attention to a message that has serious and long term economic, social and cultural implications for Australia as well as Sweden.